Seed categories

So, as mentioned before on Wikitravel Shared talk:About, I'd like to create some seed categories based on the UN/LOCODE coding system. It has about 40K cities, states, and countries listed, which will probably get us very close to a "full" geographical hierarchy.

For interested parties, I've started uploading these to http://wikitravel.org/review . Watching the recent changes there go by (you have to turn on the "show bots" to see the changes), I see a lot of bugs in the data still. The country names need to be changed to match the ones already in the DB. There should probably be a second argument to "IsIn" on shared to give the collation name (so that the disambiguator doesn't show up in category pages). I haven't figured out how to merge with existing articles, so I'm just skipping them for right now. And there are some other tricky things.

But I think there's some value in all this, and I'd love to hear some responses from people about it, here. It's going to be a while before the upload finishes, but I think you can get the gist now. --Evan 15:06, 15 September 2006 (EDT)

So, it took a couple of days, but this is done. I'd love to hear some feedback on the categories on http://wikitravel.org/review . I think there are a lot of geographical categories now (>50,000!), which I think means we won't have to add a lot from now on, but also might mean it's a little harder to find things. There are some tricky bits still (some disambiguations, like "California (state)", are extraneous, and some of the country names, like Libya's, are over-official), but mostly I think it's close to done. Opinions solicited. --Evan 20:27, 17 September 2006 (EDT)

I had a look at the India category on review, and the results are somewhat weird. There is no reason for most of what's there to be at the top level. But it is not bad for a start. — Ravikiran r 09:44, 18 September 2006 (EDT)

Yes, I noticed the same thing with Canada. I think that's just due to errors in the UN/LOCODE file, and there's not much to do except recategorize by hand. However, I think the majority of stuff is correct. --Evan 14:04, 18 September 2006 (EDT)

Some of the category names in Myanmar and Cambodia are incorrect and old. Some month ago I provided a revised list to you. Did you use it? -- Der Fussi 04:53, 20 September 2006 (EDT)

No, it didn't go in for this run, good catch. I'll get it in when it goes into production, though. Thanks for the note. --207.134.56.158 11:39, 20 September 2006 (EDT)

I now understand why they are called "Seed categories". I think running this on production will be useful then. — Ravikiran r 05:18, 22 September 2006 (EDT)

Move policy pages to main namespace

So, we're starting to use shared: more and more for inter-wiki policy and coordination activities. My feeling is that this part of shared: is like a global Wikitravel: namespace for all Wikitravel wikis. It's Wikitravel's
meta:].

Since the main topic here is the project, I don't think we need to have project-oriented pages in the "Wikitravel Shared:" namespace. Or, at least, not pages that have to do with the global project. Stuff about shared itself should probably go in that namespace -- a "meta meta" namespace -- and stuff about all Wikitravel versions should go in the main namespace.

One nice thing is that we're not really using the main namespace for anything else.

I'm moving expedition pages from en: today, and I'm going to put them in the main namespace. If there's a problem, I'm happy to move them out of it later. --Evan 11:34, 3 October 2006 (EDT)

I assume that you mean that we should not used the meta pages namespace like Wikitravel Shared:XYZ? If so, I am not sure that is the best way to do it...unless we categorize them in something like Category:Wikitravel Shared meta pages". In all, I am just keen to make sure that we can find meta pages without having to trip over other articles - not that it is a problem today, since we mainly have images and illustrations here. What do you reckon? Riggwelter 20:37, 15 October 2006 (EDT)

What Evan said, and I agree, is that only meta stuff about Shared wiki itself should go into the meta pages namespace like Wikitravel Shared:XYZ and everything on Shared about the various language versions of Wikitravel should go in the main namespace of this Shared wiki which is about those travel wikis and a place to share images for them. --Rogerhc 02:19, 3 June 2007 (EDT)

By the way, I also notice a Tech: namespace on Shared that is presumably for pages about technical software and hardware matters related to Wikitravel. --Rogerhc 02:38, 3 June 2007 (EDT)

Technical requests time plan?

There is, at the moment, quite a few issues in Category:Open bug reports. To ask for a time plan when these issues should be cleared is to ask way too much, but it would be nice to have some sort of priority system so we know when an issue could be about to be sorted. Riggwelter 20:42, 15 October 2006 (EDT)

The back log is rather long now...any ideas of when it may be reduced...? Riggwelter 16:23, 13 December 2006 (EST)

Tech stuff

It would be nice to have a page like Wikitravel Shared:Backbone with nice images and text regarding all the technical bits and bobs about Wikitravel - servers, bandwidth, location, etc. Riggwelter 05:11, 18 October 2006 (EDT)

Also, as a new contributor it would be reassuring to know that the whole majig is being backed up. Any details you can provide on redundancy and data backup strategies being employed would be very welcome! --Toasta 11:33, 1 January 2007 (EST)

Daylight Saving

I'm not sure if this point has been raised before, but should it be written on countries' pages whether they celebrate daylight saving or not? The page template appears to include a space for time zone, but not for DST. 194.82.100.71 17:36, 27 October 2006 (EDT)

The above was by me; I was previously around here as Water, but something seems to have happened to that account. Josi 17:39, 27 October 2006 (EDT)

Image history

I someone uploads a new version of an existing image, is the older version automatically deleted or kept somewhere as part of the file's history? I'm asking this because there is an image on en: being voted for deletion as it violates privacy rights. That issue could be fixed by editing the image. On the other hand, if the older version is kept accessible to the public than I guess we'd still be disrespecting the policy, so it should be deleted altogether. Ricardo (Rmx) 09:58, 3 November 2006 (EST)

From what I understand about images. The older image will stick around, but is not accessable by the general public and the only way to revert to the older image would be if an admin clicked the 'Older version' button. -- 71.72.212.152 11:58, 3 November 2006 (EST)

Interwikis

Is there anything against the use of interlanguage links (or even interwikis to Wikipedia, W66) on our category pages? More than a few times I've looked for a shortcut to the actual travel guides from a category page but no one seems to have used any yet, although the feature is enabled on the Travelers' pub, Main page etc. Ricardo (Rmx) 15:30, 4 November 2006 (EST)

Is it OK to upload such types of pictures?

Look at that image. It was uploaded from Wikimedia Commons. And at the Commons the author of this image declares that "The copyright holder of this file allows anyone to use it for any purpose, provided that the copyright holder is properly attributed. Redistribution, derivative work, commercial use, and all other use is permitted". It looks exactly like copy-lefted, but actually it was totally copyrighted, i.e. not uploaded under the license of public domain nor cc-by-sa. And here is my question. Is it possible for us to upload such types of images on Shared? --Shoestring 09:52, 7 November 2006 (EST)

Just to clarify: Even when you publish something under cc-by-sa, you retain copyright. You are just licensing your work under some conditions. As such, there is no material difference between the licensing conditions for this image and releasing it under cc-by-sa. My understanding is that you can take the image and release it under cc-by-sa as long as you attribute the photo properly. — Ravikiran r 12:31, 7 November 2006 (EST)

Sorry for my incomplete question. I have no idea whether I can explain well with my English ability, though, what I wanted to ask and clarify was like below.

As you mentioned, there may be "no material difference between the licensing conditions for this image and releasing it under cc-by-sa", but I thought it would be better to take them as quite similar but different categories. Because, it seems that this author dare not to chose cc-by-sa but another one. And I think there might be some "meaning" for this author to stick to such license (such as terms and conditions are slightly different from cc-by-sa or like that, though I have no idea what really that "meaning" is). And if it would, I think we have to discuss whether we can surely accept such type(s) of license according to the basic license policy of Wikitravel.

As you know, currently Wikitravel clearly declares that only the two types of works --released by PD or cc-by-sa-- will be acceptable. And if such type(s) of license is (are) also acceptable, I wonder why we do not mention and clarify it on the policy. Otherwise it will cause some confusion among users when we operate such similar license(s) according to the basic policy.--Shoestring 10:07, 8 November 2006 (EST)

The problem with allowing freely worded licenses is that there is too much scope for dispute. I think the text in the image there is very close to the spirit of the CC Attribution (by) license, which is explicitly allowed, but that decision should be made by the author, not us. Jpatokal 10:52, 8 November 2006 (EST)

Though this image is currently accepted on Commons, it is clearly labeled and categorized als "Images requiring attribution". But here on Wikitravel there is no such label. I've categorized the image as requiring attribution, though as of yet there is no such category on WT. I think the concerns of User:Shoestring are quite valid and merit more attention. -- Túrelio 04:00, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

You can add {{dont know}} which I think is similar – cacahuatetalk 19:04, 8 July 2007 (EDT)

Favorites

Kate 17:02, 8 November 2006 (EST) Is there an area for 'favourites' so that you can store a list of cities and their links? ( I am a newby ) Thanks.

Yes and no. The easiest way to do it just to put links on your user page (User:Dowkm002). But it might be nice to have a list of favorites that show up in the nav bar on whatever page you're on. We don't have that yet... it would be nice, I think. --Evan 18:53, 8 November 2006 (EST)

Where is Chinese version?

Why no Chinese(zh) version in Wikitravel? -- 202.125.246.44 13:17, 19 November 2006 (EST)

The zh version needs help to take off. Check the Expeditions page and join the effort if you think you could help out. Thanks. Ricardo (Rmx) 20:53, 19 November 2006 (EST)

Portuguese portal

I'd like to let you know that I've created a draft Portuguese-language portal to Wikitravel Shared. This portal aims to raise awareness and increase the use of Shared by users of Portuguese Wikitravel to whom the English language can be a barrier.

The portal is basically a version of Shared's own main page with bits of Welcome, newcomers thrown in for extra clarity and helpfulness. In fact, it just directs people to the "continent" pages at Shared from where users can keep browsing in English, and also explains how to upload images to Shared and use its images on pt:

Whereas the draft portal was originally designed here at Wikitravel Shared, we are probably setting it up (after a few minor edits) as a Portuguese Wikitravel page, where everyone should fully understand and be able to freely edit it while being watched by other people who can figure out what they are doing. The plan is to link it directly from the navigation toolbar replacing the current link to Shared's main page. On the top end of the Portuguese portal/page, there will be an English-language box directing English readers to Shared's regular main page.

So I decided to raise this topic here because:

I think it's a cool idea that other language versions may want to use too;

It marginally affects Wikitravel Shared as:

We may see a very slight increase in the number of uploads, though uploads on pt: itself are still few and far between

Some of those uploads may be erroneously tagged with Portuguese location names, although the portal clearly warns users against it;

I'd like to welcome any comments you may want to make to improve our idea.

At least we could have translated the upload image page in other languages. Therefore non en: wikitravels can have a link to the shared upload page of the same language. Handrian 22:43, 4 July 2007 (EDT)

Ahead of our time

...in design. Or at least we could have been. The switching layout technique I used for the single column Wikitravel design has been featured in A list apart. We coulda been first! -- Mark 01:52, 19 December 2006 (EST)

Images != Tech issues

I have to say I'm not very happy with the way technical discussions are now supposed to be taking place here on shared -- my gut feel is that they get ignored by people who don't log in regularly, and buried in slews of uploaded images for those who do. Would it make any sense to split images and techie stuff into separate sites, like Wikimedia's 'commons' vs 'meta'? Jpatokal 11:09, 11 January 2007 (EST)

I've been annoyed by the same problem in the past and I think this is a good idea. Maybe we could use the Review site, if database changes aren't very frequent for testing things like the TOC or the LOCODE bot test? -- Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 11:14, 11 January 2007 (EST)

I don't see the angle in having yet another shared site for all users. The whole point is to have just one central site, rather than a bundle of them. If you can't find tech requests, try filtering for the "Tech" namespace in Recent changes. I'd also like to make an RSS feed for tech issues for people who are interested, as well as a feed for the shared logbook. --Evan 11:32, 11 January 2007 (EST)

I was going to say the same thing about filtering search-- it's a neat tool. RSS feeds sound like a great idea too. Maj 15:23, 11 January 2007 (EST)

I think the problem is that there isn't discussions about tech issues other than the person alerts us about the issue and Evan. It would be nice to encourage more discussion from other users. If there's away to do that I think it would solve the problem. Maybe adding a note to MW:Recentchangestext saying: 'If you're interested in more recent discussion concerning technical issues please filter this page by displaying edits to the "Tech" namespace using. You can filter the recent changes page by using the menu below.' -- Andrew H.

I'm just not convinced that a wiki is the right way to handle the whole idea of reporting technical bugs and requesting features. Why not use something like Bugzilla or Scarab, which would then also provide the ability to do spiffy stuff like classify and prioritize bugs, send out notifications, attach patches etc? Jpatokal 23:36, 11 January 2007 (EST)

Image clutter

I believe there are loads of images uploaded on the different language versions of WT, as well as on Shared. Is there any easy-to-use tool available to:

take stock of which images are uploaded on more than one site

transfer images from any language version to Shared

delete the image from the language version

I assume the last item, deletion, has to be done manually - but it would be handy to get rid of unnecessary copies of images. Riggwelter 03:27, 15 January 2007 (EST)

Links section only shows links to pages on Shared?

Why does the links section for an image only show the links to the pages on Shared that use the photo? Is it/will it be possible for it to list the pages from the various language versions that link to that image? That would be a super great feature... - Cacahuate 18:07, 22 February 2007 (EST)

Commons has it, I think, th mySQL is down on Commons so I can't be sure. It'd be good to make a formal tech request, though. -- Sapphire • (Diskussion) • 18:32, 22 February 2007 (EST)

I don't see an example of that on Commons. Can you show me a page that has it? --Evan 07:54, 23 February 2007 (EST)

It's not a MediaWiki feature, but an external feature accessible under the "Check usage" tag that gets you pages like this. Jpatokal 08:21, 23 February 2007 (EST)

New Templates

Munich

Cincinnati

Andrew and I developed a new template to standardize how the quick facts about a city (or island etc.) are displayed. It works pretty much like the Quickbar for countries. As an additional feature it is possible to show the location of the city on a map of the country, just by entering the geographical coordinates we use in the geo-template anyway. (Examples on the right.)
It would be great if other language versions would use this template, too, because then this information could easily be copied from one Wikitravel to the other! --Flip666writeme! • 14:27, 9 March 2007 (EST)

Unfortunately, because it would look a little awkward we couldn't provide an example on this page. See Template:QuickbarCity for an example. Feel free to ask us any questions about the template. One important feature to mention is that if you provide a value for the latitude and longitude, then a Geo template will automatically be included and should make other Geo template's in the article redundant. -- Sapphire • (Talk) • 14:32, 9 March 2007 (EST)

TOC

I know there already has been a discussion (can someone give me the link, I cannot find it) and I do not want to shout "Jehova", but... the Table of Contents still produces a lot of whitespace and this does not look good. Especially since we started to use QuickbarStadt on the German language version, we have more and more pages with this problem. Have a look at München and compare it to the Version in my Sandbox. The first impression is the most important impression. Yes, for now it is a hack. But I think there are options in the Wiki-software doing this (or something similar) in a regular way. Opinions? --Flip666writeme! • 14:29, 12 March 2007 (EDT)

Policy about images with identifiable persons?

Is there any policy on Wikitravel/Shared about images with clearly identifiable persons? This question came up when I found Image:Bahinni (Schwesterchen).JPG. I think this could be a good example, because this (nice) image obviously has no additional problems like nudity or derogatory depiction. At least in my country and probably in most others as well, making and publishing such a portrait-like image would require the explicit consent of the depicted person. On Commons, despite a general agreement there is still some discussion about that, as usual. So, what is required to publish such an image on WT/S? -- Túrelio 04:12, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

that I've up-loaded a moment ago. Of course I didn't ask any of all the persons for consent. Is that acceptable? Otherwise please delete. -- Túrelio 11:50, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

We could just blur the faces. -- Sapphire • (Talk) • 22:29, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

I think that the image policy item when it concerns people in photo's must be reviewed and preferably scrapped. As a tourist, it is virtually impossible to visit any attraction and take a picture without catching other people in the image...and the idea of asking them for permission to publish the image on Wikitravel is not reasonable. I do not think we need to be quite so paranoid about people in images. We can see it as something worth working for, but to see it as a major obstacle for publishing a photograph - no. Riggwelter 19:02, 30 March 2007 (EDT)

...consider the "face in the crowd" picture shown and discussed earlier. In both cases, the subjects are identifiable, but there's another common element: they are either on public land, or are freely visible from public land. When such a condition exists, a new twist comes into play: Fair Use. This is actually a fairly complicated legal term that refers to many things. In the context of this discussion, one of the definitions of fair use includes a condition in which a person cannot assume a degree of privacy because he's in public space, which means that he can be photographed (and cannot stop the process).

Another of the Fair Use definitions is the use of copyrighted materials on public display. For example, a statue in a public square, or a painting on a wall in a public building are both copyrighted by the artists that made them. However, because they are in public space, you are free to photograph them, and to license those photos for editorial use without being subject to copyright infringement. Take note: the use is editorial, which means you can license the photo to a newspaper, but not to a company for use in an ad. Seth1066 05:37, 27 April 2007

Cyprus

I think someone should make an article on cyprus, i've been there on vacation, wonderful place!

IsIn on Shared

I have been a little confused about what to put in the {{IsIn}} templates for articles. I'm pretty sure the geographical hierarchy on shared is different from that of the english site, but is there a way to look up what exactly the hierarchy is? Also, if a category does not exist for a corresponding article on en, what would be the best way to create it? --Peterfitzgerald 10:36, 26 April 2007 (EDT)

Just to clarify my question: The {{IsIn}} template is used on the english site to breadcrumb back to the next level of the geographic hierarchy ( e.g., Location "Ulan-Ude": {{IsIn|Buryatia}} ). Is this how I should use the tag on Shared? Or does the category "Buryatia" (and other categories for similarly new subdivisions in Russia) even exist on Shared? Should I just put country names in the IsIn template? --Peterfitzgerald 15:38, 30 April 2007 (EDT)

Or should I just skip the {{IsIn}} template altogether and just use the location= section of the image credit template? --Peterfitzgerald 00:57, 3 May 2007 (EDT)

Ummm. You might want to get that checked by a physician. The IsIn template is to be used only in category pages. I.e. To say Category:Tennessee is in the Category:South (United States) you'd use {{IsIn|South (United States)}} within the Category:Tennessee.

And as a preventive measure, {{Location|Tennessee}} is to be used on images only. This template includes images within the Category:Tennessee. Currently, if you're uploading images with the Template:Imagecredit there'll be no need to use this template since when you fill out the Location= field it will automatically organize images into the category you specified. -- Sapphire • (Talk) • 07:05, 11 May 2007 (EDT)

Some images from World 66 are not compatible with the copyleft

Alright, so I've noticed a few people uploading images from W66 and I have to warn everyone uploading some images from World 66 (W66) is incompatible with the copyleft.

Why? Well, W66 uses a script to find and display images on the W66. This means that many images are in fact not licensed under CC ShareAlike 1.0. The script checks to see if a robot.txt forbids the use/display of the images and if there is not outright ban then the script displays the image on W66. See this W66 policy page for the details [1]. In short, W66 uses some copyrighted non-CC-by-SA 1.0 licensed images.
So I recommend no one upload any images from W66 unless you are 175% sure that the image is compatible with our copyleft.

No Rights Reserved, Copyrighted Materials

I noticed that there is not currently a way to upload copyrighted images for which the license holder has irrevocably released all rights. (see: template) As I understand, these images are for all intents and purposes identical to Public Domain images. Can I upload such images? Do we need a new licensing option in the pull-down menu? --Peterfitzgerald 12:22, 1 May 2007 (EDT)

I think the phrase "irrevocably released all rights" is a fancy way to say public domain. Use the PD by creator template, but I urge you to have proof, even in the form of a screen shot. -- Sapphire • (Talk) • 06:58, 11 May 2007 (EDT)

Original .svg for maps

I'd like to make the request that for maps we encourage people to upload both the .png/.jpg and the original .svg file, so that they can be translated easily into other languages. Texugo 21:21, 14 May 2007 (EDT)